Tangram Puzzles - Cleve Moler on Mathematics and Computing

[poster]

The tangram is an ancient Chinese puzzle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangram) with seven pieces.

https://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/files/swan_2.png

Contents


Varety (#7bfb0bd3-0a72-4694-9b8d-20cb60e76146)
Schools (#6998af6c-5e57-409a-885c-ec9eaeabc7da)
Figures (#3a576a2a-3594-4ab3-8279-481398278d5e)
Puzzle (#fcd2cd22-b9ca-4131-aff5-e9593bbda833)
Kitty (#01d2108b-0167-4b1f-ac42-0c4adeb85b8b)
Swan (#65fe0237-d99d-43c4-b3d8-5764c1da7767)
Square (#32352feb-7afe-4568-b7e9-aa2b18a3dbb3)
Web (#bfe649ab-22ee-41a0-bfba-d6cd158a7e4f)

Varety

Tangram puzzles can be made with paper, plastic or wood.

https://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/files/wooden_3.jpg

Schools

School kids all over the world enjoy tangram puzzles.

https://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/files/school.png

Figures

Thousands of figures, like these animals, can be made.

https://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/files/animals.png

Puzzle

My MATLAB code Tangram (https://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/files/Tangram_mzip.m) opens with a screen showing seven pieces, which are called tans. There are two large triangles, one medium triangle, two small triangles, one square, and one parallelogram.

https://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/files/Tangram.png

The puzzle is interactive. You can move the tans.

https://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/files/open.gif

Kitty

The kitty is a new-comer's favorite.

https://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/files/kitty.gif

Swan

The parallelogram is the only tans that does not have reflection symmetry. It needs to be reversed with the flipper button when forming shapes like this swan. The swan at the top of this blog is looking in the opposite direction and does not need its parallelogram flipped.

https://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/files/swan.gif

Square

Here are the starting moves for making a square. You can finish the square yourself by downloading Tangram_mzip (https://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/files/Tangram_mzip.m).

Or, if you are not in a do-it-yourself mood and just want the answer, see square_3.gif (https://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/files/square_3.gif).

https://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/files/start.gif

Web

There are hundreds of web sites about Tangrams. Here are two that I enjoyed.

https://www.pinterest.com/ivahilator/tangram.

https://kubiyagames.com/products/tangram-puzzle-two-sets-with-65-challenge-cards.


Get the MATLAB code (requires JavaScript) (javascript:grabCode_b040b2278ce24ed881bfb38a496b410d())

Published with MATLAB® R2024b